Thursday, December 18, 2008

Ice Storm Expected Thurs. Dec. 18, 2008

The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning for our area involving snow and ice accumulations that may cause treacherous conditions. On Wednesday, the city of LaSalle staff and Red Cross officials held an emergency planning meeting to discuss the city's approach to handling this storm. Although the city has taken precautions, it is difficult at this time to predict exactly what type of weather will hit our area. Residents and businesses are advised to make their own emergency plans and monitor weather conditions. Should the city activate their emergency plan, staff will make every attempt to communicate the city's activities and knowledge of conditions to the public using the Code Red system as a primary means of contact. Other forms of communication could include:

Additional winter weather emergency resources:
FEMA Winter Storm Information
IEMA Winter Storm Preparedness
CDC Winter Weather Information
American Red Cross Winter Storm Information
You Tube video on Food Supplies during an emergency
You Tube video on Water Supplies during an emergency

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

LaSalle's Rotary Park


About 15 years ago, Illinois Cement, one of LaSalle's major industries, committed to donating their quarry to the city for a park. At the time, a diorama was created showing a lake and paths, and I think some wondered if this would ever actually become reality. Well, it seems that day is now approaching. Thanks to Illinois Cement following through on their original commitment, the deed to transfer the property is already in the works. And LaSalle Rotary is taking up the lead of spearheading development of the area into an awesome city park - a park that one day might become one of the largest city parks in Illinois outside of Chicago.

Gary Gearhart, leading the LaSalle Rotary charge, had assembled a park committee that for some time had been looking for a park site to develop. After all their searching, they decided the Illinois Cement land was the most suitable site with the donated portion of the land amounting to about 110+ acres lying within the limits of the old quarry. Rotary also decided they will purchase about 52 additional acres of ground that was never quarried making the total area of the future park about 170+ acres.

The next step for LaSalle Rotary had been to develop concept plans. Gearhart managed to connect with the University of Illinois and was rewarded with a committment from their architectural department to allow one of their students to work with LaSalle Rotary to develop that plan. Enter Tony Morelli, an exceptional student with great vision, design, and presentation skills who also happens to be from nearby Ottawa, Ill. This young man has managed to listen to all the ideas and create an exciting vision for the future use of this land which includes a 20+ acre lake, a section of river, miles of paths, ball diamonds, soccer fields, dog parks, sledding, and cross-country skiing.

The public can follow the development of this park by visiting a Website set up by Morelli using pbwiki at lasallepark.pbwiki.com.

Monday, October 20, 2008

What are those squares on the road?

Today, I was notified by an engineer at Chamlin and Associates that his firm will be conducting traffic counts next week in LaSalle on the following roads:

  • Canal St.
  • Marquette St.
  • Fourth St.

This means you will probably see small black squares taped down to the pavement in these areas. The squares count the number of vehicles that travel down that road and keep track of the time each vehicle went by.

The traffic counts are needed for an engineering study Chamlin and Associates is working on for the state of Illinois to help determine the route for the Alliance Trail. You can find out more information about the project by visiting the IDOT Website.

Friday, September 19, 2008

LaSalle's Wastewater Plant Recovery

Today we started working in earnest on recovering our wastewater plant site. Here is a copy of our updated plan: 2008 Wastewater Plant Recovery Plan.

With all the rain, the city has also been receiving numerous calls from people who have experienced groundwater in their basements. Some residents have sump pumps and are able to pump this water out; however, many people are still calling with concern over the amount of water they are pumping. With the ground saturated and the water table already high in certain areas of the city, this is to be expected to some degree. If you have a sump pump and are concerned about the amount of water you are pumping, you can check the following to help diminish the amount of water directed to your sump pump:

  • Check that all downspouts are directed away from your foundation and discharge a minimum of ten feet away. However, keep in mind you cannot discharge this water onto your neighbor's property.
  • Check to make sure the ground around your foundation slopes away from your home. If not, grade your yard so that water drains away from your foundation. But again, keep in mind you cannot grade your yard in a manner that places more water on your neighbor's property.
  • Some older homes in the city were constructed with their foundation drains tied into the city's sanitary sewer and have never been disconnected. If this is the case, water can back up in the city's sewer into your foundation drain during periods of high rain. To prevent this from occuring, you can disconnect your foundation drains from the city's sewer and redirect the drains into a sump pump or to another outlet that would allow the water to drain by gravity.
  • Further and more detailed information can be found at the following link: Wet Basement Tips

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

LaSalle Experiences Record-Setting River Crest



Yesterday, Sept. 16, 2008, the Illinois River had a record-setting flood crest at 33.79 feet at LaSalle (from NOAA Web site). This resulted in extensive flooding in the area lying within the city of LaSalle corporate boundaries adjacent to the Illinois Michigan Canal and Little Vermilion River. The city's wastewater plant is currenty submerged under approximately ten feet of flood waters. The city's wastewater collection system is functioning; however, no wastewater is being treated at this time. Based on the NOAA Web site, we do not anticipate being able to begin recovery efforts at our plant until Mon., Sept. 22, 2008. We have established a recovery plan. Please keep in mind that this is a working document and subject to change as we proceed through with our plan.

In addition to the wastewater plant, the city will also focus on cleanup of other city property. In particular the city's well field and roadway system lying within the area of flooding. If anyone has questions, please contact me through E-mail or by calling me at the office at 815-223-7041. We will endeavor to keep up with all the normal city maintenance and operations, but ask that residents please be patient with us as we work to recover our plant.

Monday, September 8, 2008

Governor to Close State Parks

I am writing to inform our citizens about an online petition that Illinois residents can sign to let our governor know that we do not agree with his most recent decision to close many of our state parks.

http://www.gopetition.com/online/21603.html


As most of you know who live in our area, the state parks are one of the best features we have. Their closing will cause us to not only lose one of the few tourism attractions left to us, but the lack of maintenance on the parks will cause future problems.

Closing the parks is like you walking away from your house for two or more years and then trying to move back in after absolutely no maintenance has been done on it during that time. Think of the time, energy, and money that you would need to put into your home and yard after all that time to be able to bring it back to a move-in condition. Would our future politicians even deem it worthwhile at that point?

And the lack of tourism will only serve to further decrease any revenues upon which our local communities rely. We already have had a significant decrease in revenue from the state and now we face further cuts from these actions.

I have chosen to use this blog to push out this message because these decisions affect our city, our revenues, and it is a poor engineering decision on the part of our governor to close off this asset to our citizens. Please let me know if you agree or disagree with our community taking this stand.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Flooding

Last month we were hit with a major storm - the largest our area has seen in terms of rainfall intensity for some time. Many people's homes and properties experienced flooding. Because of this, I thought some people might be interested in looking at FLOODSIM - a Web site that has been set up to educate people about flooding. It is based on the UK but many of the principles are similar; the site gives people the opportunity to make flood-related decisions and apply them to the country. Then the rain begins and reports come in about how well your decisions reduced flooding.

Although going through the site may not help stop your flooding problem, it might give people a little insight into how decisions are made by government and what they can do to try to influence or improve upon those decisions as members of the community.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Public Works Update - Week of Aug. 3rd

Here is a quick update on a few projects/issues happening around town:

Lights on the bridge over the canal and lights downtown:
After a truck damaged two lights on the bridge and after waiting over a year to go through the insurance and ordering of new lights, the city hired JB Contracting to put up the new lights and fix the wiring last month. So everything on the bridge should be operational. Unfortunately for the lighting downtown, the city is still waiting to get the lights. These were ordered at the same time as the ones on the bridge, but for some reason they were manufactured wrong so we shipped them back. When we get the correct lights, they will be installed downtown in the areas where the city has improved the streetscape.


Golfview Sanitary Sewer Extension and Road Reconstruction:
Last month the city opened bids for this project; John Pohar & Sons was the low bidder for the project. Work will begin after contracts are signed and Pohars can schedule the job to begin. We are expecting that this will not happen before the week of Aug. 25th.

Because the road had failed so completely, we will be remove the entire pavement lying between the curb and replace it with a different pavement design. Because we are removing the entire roadway, we are taking advantage of the situation and installing the sanitary sewer for the subdivision so that residents will have a sewer to tie in to should their septic tank fail. We will run each sewer service to the property line and cap it. Residents will not be required to tie in at this time but will be able to whenever they so choose. At that time, each resident will be responsible for all costs associated with hooking up their own line from their house to the capped line and for paying a sewer hookup fee to the city.


East 6th Road:
All work associated with the road repair and ditch reconstruction has been completed. The city is in the process of getting bids to install the landscaping which will be sod. As soon as bids are recieved, the city will authorize the contractor to begin the work.


Storm-related work:
After being inundated with about 5 inches of rain and then being hit with a wind storm a week later, city crews have been working hard to televise sewers and pick up downed branches. The street department has picked up branches from over 300 sites in the last 2 weeks. They have also televised several sewers in the areas that experienced backups. So far the only problem found in the sanitary sewer was in the line along Crosat Street. The crews found a significant amount of roots in the line so we have arranged for a crew to come out and cut out the roots this week (week of Aug. 3rd).